8

Nadjela says goodbye to the trees that offered them shelter all day yesterday, while Chester refills his canteen with water. It was time to continue the arduous march through the wilderness.

By noon the sun was already beating down, and at night they were visited by a bitter cold and lack of humidity, which forced them to hide under a boulder that was barely more than five feet high. If Nadjela knew about the sea, she would have compared the way the wind rocked the inches of dust and earth to a swell.

After Chester's unsuccessful attempts to light a fire, first by rubbing dry twigs and then by pounding stones, Nadjela takes off her necklace and, from their joined palms, it casts a sphere of white light that surrounds them, chasing away the shadows and discomfort. Even the wind feels gentler under that spotlight. They both stretch their bodies in that little corner of comfort. Chester whistles and asks how it works.

"It's impossible to explain," says the princess. "I only know that it helps me when I ask it to. It's a magical power that takes care of me.

"Do you believe in magic?"

"Don't you...?"

"I find it hard to believe in the intangible for my sword. Magic; Santa Claus; Income tax"

"I don't understand what income tax is, or Santa Claus, but... -I don't... You came from the sky, flying, on a being almost as tall as a mountain. Isn't that magical enough for you?"

"There's a logical explanation for all that, you see?"

Chester opens his mouth to answer her with ideas of technology and science, but his lips remain still, as if he is aware of how unintelligible he finds these technicalities that take up space in his head.

"If the toothy dwarf who gave me North Star were present, I'd have a thousand complaints and rants to spout. Stuff about physics, engineering, and aerodynamics, that someone as dumb as I am would never understand.... You know what, I'll take your version! May it all be magic and let's keep on rolling"

Still accepting that, Nadjela asks Chester what physics, engineering, and aerodynamics were, eager to expand her knowledge. Chester's face becomes tanned with pearls of sweat. He repeats that it's not his subject, that he's an action guy. Also falls the question of whether dwarves in heaven are allowed to live.

"In La Cuna any deformed baby is considered cursed and sacrificed by the elders, being thrown from the top of the temple"

"In the sky, you don't have to be deformed to be seen as cursed or erased"

"How cruel"

"And the elders you respect are not cruel?"

"It's different" He averts his face, suspicious of the ease with which the swordsman raises the question. -Deformed children contribute little and die young, and during their short lives they receive only shame and pain. In comparison, being sacrificed to the divine is a merciful fate.

(It sounds a little bad out loud. But it's only fair and it's the truth. It's been done that way for generations)

Chester laughs. Nadjela looks at him reproachfully.

"Sorry. It's just that I can't help but laugh at that rotten pity. We love to pick and choose over others, don't we? As if our lives are perfect, or are devoid of shame and pain, or we know all the answers. Cruelty is cruelty, and murder is murder. No matter how you paint it, you're still denying someone the chance to experience life, to laugh and cry, to find happiness if there's a measly chance they'll get a taste of it, even if it's for four poorly counted moments"

Chester pushes with his heels to remove his boots. Then with one hand he lifts the scabbard of his sword. He puts his other hand on the hilt, and unsheathes several inches of metal, reflecting his scarlet gaze on the blade.

"That's why I'll never be a savior, or a hero from the comics, or the movies. At the end of the day I'm just an outcast whose only talent is cutting things in half" He closes the blade and lays it down on the rock, between the two of them. "What redeems me, more or less, is that I understand that those four happy moments are worth it"

Nadjela wants to tell him that he is not an outcast, to remind him that thanks to his efforts and attentions they are still alive. But Chester looked so longing and hopeful scanning the horizon, looking for she knows what secrets or confirmations, that the princess got stuck for words.